French battleship Jean Bart (1940)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  (Redirected from Jean Bart (1940))
Jump to: navigation, search
Battleship Jean Bart
The Jean Bart, photographed from a plane of the USS Ranger. Turret number two was not yet operational
Career (France) French Navy Ensign
Namesake: Jean Bart
Laid down: December 1936
Launched: 6 March 1940
Completed: 1952
Commissioned: 16 January 1949
Decommissioned: 1961
Reclassified: 1961 Gunnery School Tender
Struck: 1969
Fate: 24 June 1970
General characteristics
Class and type: Richelieu class battleship
Displacement:

35,560 tonnes

48,950 t at full load
Length: 248 m
Beam: 35 m
Draught: 9.60 m
Propulsion: four Parsons geared turbines, 150,000 hp (112 MW)
Speed: 32 knots (59 km/h)
Range: 7671 nautical miles (14,207 km) at 20 knots (37 km/h); 3181 nautical miles (5,891 km) at 30 knots (56 km/h)
Complement:

911 men in 1950 (incomplete)

1,280 men during the Suez affair
Armament:


  • 8 x 380mm/45 Modèle 1935 guns in quadruple mounts at bow
  • 9 × 152 mm AA in 3 triple turrets at the aft
  • 24 × 100 mm AA in 12 twin turrets
  • 8 × 40 mm AA
  • 28 × 57 mm AA in 14 twin turrets
  • 20 × 20 mm AA
Armour:


  • Belt: 330 mm
  • Upper armoured deck: 150 mm
  • Lower armoured deck: 40 mm
For the first French battleship with this name, see French battleship Jean Bart (1911).

The Jean Bart was a French battleship of World War II, named for the seventeenth-century seaman, privateer, and corsair Jean Bart. She was the second ship of the Richelieu battleship class. Derived from the Dunkerque class, Jean Bart (and her sister ship Richelieu) were designed to counter the threat of the heavy ships of the Italian Navy. Their speed, shielding, armament, and overall technology were state of the art, but they had a rather unusual main battery armament arrangement, with two 4-gun turrets to the bow and none to the stern.

Uncomplete when she left Saint-Nazaire to Casablanca in June 1940, the Jean Bart was completed post war, and entered in active service only in 1955, with an updated anti-aircraft battery. She had a very short carreer, being put into reserve in 1957, then decommissioned in 1961, and scrapped in 1969.

Contents

[edit] Background and genesis

The first modern battleship of the French Navy, Dunkerque, was ordered in 1932. Dunkerque was designed to outclass the German "pocket battleship" Deutschland, which had been laid down in 1929. The German Reichsmarine had ordered two similar units to Deutschland in 1931-32, Admiral Scheer and Admiral Graf Spee,[1] which outgunned all existing heavy cruisers.[2] Only HMS Hood, and the two Renown class battlecruisers could catch Deutschland and her sister-ships.[3]

Dunkerque had a displacement of 26,500 tons, and was armed with eight 330 mm guns. She had a speed of 29.5 knots, and protection able to resist the Deutschland's 280 mm shells.[4] These specifications were well below the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty limits of 35,000 tons and 406 mm (16 in), making Dunkerque much weaker than battleships built around 1920. The French Government stayed within these limits not wishing to jeopardize the efforts of the United Kingdom to obtain more drastic naval armament limitations in the disarmament negotiations conducted by the League of Nations, from 1926 to 1932.

Germany then ordered two units in February 1934, first announced as part of the Deutschland class. These were laid down in May–June 1935, just after Adolf Hitler has announced German rearmament in violation of the Versailles Treaty, and just before the Anglo-German Naval Agreement. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau emerged as fast battleships, heavier (31,800 tons) than Dunkerque and much better armored, armed with nine improved guns, still of 280 mm caliber.[5] Italy believed that the Dunkerque class broke the balance between the battleship fleets in Western Mediterranean, and so in May 1934 announced [6] the building of two 35,000 tons battleships, armed with nine 381 mm guns.[7][8] The French reaction was to order, on July 16, 1934, a second Dunkerque class ship, Strasbourg, and to plan the first French 35,000 ton battleship.[9]

Eight days later, on July 24, 1934, the Conseil Superieur de la Marine, French equivalent of the Board of Admiralty, defined the characteristics of the new French battleships as follows :

  • displacement: 35,000 tons standard
  • main armament:eight/nine guns of 380/406 mm calibre
  • secondary armament: to be capable of fire against surface targets and long -range anti-aircraft fire
  • speed: 29.5-30 knots
  • protection; belt 360 mm; upper armored deck 160 mm; lower armored deck 40 mm; underwater protection as Dunkerque

Thirteen months later, the Service Technique des Constructions navales, (S.T.C.N.) (French equivalent of the Royal Navy's Department of the Director of Naval Construction) established a definitive project. It was submitted to the Minister 14 August, adopted 31 August, and became Richelieu - laid down 22 October 1935. So acting, France was not respecting the naval limitation Treaties, in that 88,000 tons of new battleships had been ordered between 1922 and December 31, 1936, against a limit of 70,000 tons allowed by the 1922 Treaty of Washington and the 1930 Treaty of London. However, on June 18, 1935, the Anglo-German Naval Agreement had been signed by the United Kingdom unilaterally, and the Third Reich. This cancelled de facto the limitations of the Treaty of Versailles regarding displacement of various types of warships, and granted Germany a total tonnage for the Kriegsmarine equal to 35% of the total tonnage of the Royal Navy. France had become unable to counter both German and Italian Navies, as she was expecting to do it, respecting the Versailles and Washington Treaties. France considered the Dunkerque battleship class was the answer to the Scharnhorst battleship class, and the Richelieu class battleships the answer to the Italian battleships Littorio and Vittorio Veneto .

Germany went a step further, laying down two new battleships, the Bismarck in November 1935 and the Tirpitz in June 1936. These ships, strongly armored as their protection absorbed more than 40% of their standard displacement, with a very large beam of 36 metres (118 ft), got a very classic design, eight 380 mm (15 in) guns in double turrets (two forward and two aft) and the secondary anti-ship artillery as six double 150 mm (5.9 in) turrets on the sides. Their powerful anti-aircraft artillery in sixteen 105 mm (4.1 in) guns in eight double turrets, plus numerous 37 mm (1.5 in) and 20 mm (0.79 in) mountings, controlled by six high-angle directors was unmatched anywhere[10]; officially declared as 35,000 long tons (35,562 t), their displacement was actually more than 42,000 long tons (42,670 t) standard and even nearing 50,000 tonnes (49,210 long tons) full load.[11][12] The French answer was the laying down of the second Richelieu class battleship, the Jean Bart, in December 1936.[13]

[edit] Characteristics

Jean Bart was intended to be the exact sister ship of Richelieu, with the same 35,000-long-ton (35,562 t) tons Standard displacement, same hull dimensions (length : 247.85 m (813 ft),beam : 33.00 m (108 ft),draught : 9.22 m (30.2 ft)), same armement, protection, and propulsion.

[edit] Armament

The designed main and secondary artillery batteries were those retained, in 1939 on Richelieu, eight 380 mm (15.0 in) /45 Modèle 1935 guns in two quadruple Modèle 1935 turrets forward, and nine 152 mm (6.0 in)/52 Model 1930 guns, in three Dual-Purpose Modèle 1936 turrets aft, two lateral and one axial.

All which was written about the 380 mm guns of Richelieu (range: 37,800 m (41,300 yd), rate of fire : 1.3 rpm, 380 mm Armor Piercing Capped shells weighing 884 kg (1,950 lb), armor of main turrets 430 mm (17 in) thick on faces) applies to Jean Bart.

[edit] Main and secondary artillery

From 1936 to 1938, twenty-one 380 mm/45 Modèle 1935 gun barrels were constructed at Ruelle naval artillery establishment, sixteen to be fitted on Richelieu and Jean Bart, while two were intended to be retained at Ruelle, and three at the Gâvres gunnery testing ground, near Lorient. Twelve were installed (eight on Richelieu and four on the #1 turret on Jean Bart), the remaining nine ones fell in 1940 in the Germans hands, except one lost with the Mecanicien Principal Lestin freighter, bound to Casablanca, but sunk by a German aerial attack off the Gironde estuary, in June 1940, shipping one barrel earmarked for the Jean Bart's #2 main turret.[14]

When it was decided, in November 1939, to reallocate the amidships 152 mm turrets from the first pair of the Richelieu class battleships, to the next battleship to be built, Clemenceau, no armor plating was installed on the barbettes already in place, on Richelieu, and the installation of the corresponding barbettes was cancelled on Jean Bart. When Jean Bart left Saint-Nazaire, to Casablanca, in June 1940, no one of the three aft 152 mm turrets have yet been installed.[15]

[edit] Anti aircraft light artillery

As there was a shortage of 100 mm (3.94 in) CAD Model 1930 turrets, intended to be substitued to the 152 mm amidships turrets on Richelieu and Jean Bart, it was decided to install on Jean Bart 90 mm (3.54 in) CAD Modèle 1930 turrets, which were in use on the most recent La Galissonniere class light cruisers. The 90 mm (3.54 in)/50 Modèle 1926 guns of these turrets fired OEA Model 1925 shells, weighing 9.5 kg (20.9 lb), with a muzzle velocity of 850 m/s, at a maximum range of 15,440 m (16,900 yd) and a 10,600 m (34,800 ft) ceiling (at 80° maximum elevation).[16] The rate of fire was 10-15rpm theoretical, 6-8rpm practical.[17].

Due to the difficulties to dispose of the twin automatic 37 mm ACAD Modèle 1935 mountings in time for the withdrawal of Jean Bart from Saint-Nazaire, in june 1940, she was fitted, as the Dunkerque class battleships, and the Richelieu, with the less efficient semi-automatic 37 mm CAD Modèle 1933 mountings, in scarce number.

When the Jean Bart left to Casablanca, she had been fitted out with two 90 mm CAD m, hastily installed the day before but without any ammunition, with three 37 mm CAD Modèle 1933 mountings, and two four-gun and four two-gun 13.2 mm MG,[18] but there was as yet no target designation or unified control system.[19]

[edit] Fire control systems

As she was designed with exactly the same fire control director systems as Richelieu, no directors nor range finders were installed before the Jean Bart left Saint-Nazaire, not even the 14 m (45.9 ft) stereoscopic range finder, which was to be installed in the main turret still in place.

[edit] Aircraft facilities

Thae aviation facilities also remained incomplete, only the the bases of the catapults, the elevator and the base of the crane have been installed.

[edit] Armor and underwater protection

The hull armor was installed exactly as designed for the Richelieu:[20]

  • 327 mm (12.9 in) armored belt, with a slope of 15°24',
  • 233 mm (9.2 in) thick armored fore and aft bulkheads, reinforced to 355 mm (14.0 in) for the fore bulkhead between the first and second platform decks,
  • 150 mm (5.9 in) upper armored deck, above the machinery, and 170 mm (6.7 in) above the main artillery magazines, and a 40 mm (1.6 in) lower armored deck, extended to frame 233. After the aft tranverse bulkhead, a 100 mm (3.9 in) armored deck above the shafts was increased to 150 mm (5.9 in) above the steering gear.

The conning tower had the same armor thickness as Richelieu (340 mm (13 in) on front and sides, but the #1 380 mm gun turret was only a steel frame, whitout any armor plating as no barrel could have been installed before the battleship left France.

The underwater protection was exactly the same (7m wide) as on Richelieu.

[edit] Propulsion

[edit] History

[edit] From Saint-Nazaire to Casablanca

The Jean Bart was laid down in December 1936; it was built in the large Caquot dock in Penhoët later named the "Jean Bart dock" and was expected to leave it in October 1940. In May 1940, it was decided that the uncompleted battleship had to be sent to a safer place in Britain or in French Africa, beyond the Luftwaffe's range. The ship was afloat in the fitting-out basin; however, this was separated from the navigational channel by an earth dam. When it appeared that the Battle of France was on its way to be won by the Wehrmacht by late May, work on dredging the earth dam was begun in order to be ready to leave at a high tide on June 20. Half the propulsion machinery (boilers and turbines) was fitted to be worked when necessary. On June 18, as the German Panzer divisions were approaching, the Commanding Officer was ordered to be ready to leave immediately for Casablanca or to scuttle the ship. It was not before the middle of the next night that the dredging work was finished with very narrow margins for the battleship to pass through, and in the early hours of 19 June, nearly in view of the German vanguard, the Jean Bart – barely 75% completed, her steam engines never having been worked before, and under the threat of German bombers – was taken out of her St. Nazaire's dock by four tugs and reached under her own steam Casablanca, Morocco, on June 22; the average speed on the journey's final leg was 22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph).[21][22][23]

Only one of her two 380 mm (15 in) main turrets had been installed by then; the second turret's guns had to be left, except one, lost with the sinking of the vessel shipping them. Her 152 mm (6.0 in) secondary battery was also not yet installed, and it was replaced by anti-aircraft machine guns. No rangefinder was fitted.[24] The Jean Bart, moored in Casablanca harbor, stayed uncompleted as facilities to complete her were completely lacking.[25]

On 8 November 1942, Allied landings in French North Africa (Operation Torch) begun. The Jean Bart, with her 380 mm (15 in) guns opened fire on the U.S. warships covering the landings, range finding being done using the shore stations of Sidi Abderhamane and Dar Bou Azza and the data sent by phone to the battleship.[26] But she was quickly silenced by the second hit from the 406 mm (16.0 in) guns of the USS Massachusetts battleship, which jammed the turret rotating mechanism on the French battleship. The sixth of the seven 406 mm (16.0 in) shells which hit her exploded in a magazine of 152 mm (6.0 in) turret, which was empty as these turrets had not been installed. In normal war circumstances, this event would have had catastrophic consequences.[27] These magazines' armor weakness was known, and was intended to be corrected on the Gascogne. On November 10, her 380 mm (15 in) turret having been overhauled, Jean Bart almost hit the USS Augusta, the Task Force 34 flagship. Bombers from the aircraft carrier USS Ranger soon inflicted severe damage on her, two heavy bombs hitting the bow and the stern, and the battleship settled into the harbor mud with decks awash.[28][29] .

The Jean Bart attacked by planes of the USS Ranger

[edit] Completion

After the French North Africa forces joined the Allies, Jean Bart was made seaworthy to be refitted with American help, as with the Richelieu. The French Admiralty's wish – presented by Vice Admiral Fenard, Chief of the French Naval Mission – to complete the Jean Bart in U.S. shipyards was discussed during 1943. But the U.S. Navy authorities concluded the task exceeded their capacities, for the ship was too different from the equivalent U.S. warships, and the correct parts were lacking.[30] Instead of completing her as designed, it was proposed in May 1943 to complete her with only one main artillery turret, using 340 mm (13 in) guns taken on the French battleship Lorraine that had joined the Allied forces (after she had stayed from 1940 to 1943 in Alexandria). Fifteen U.S.-built dual-purpose 127 mm (5.0 in) double turrets, sixteen Bofors 40 mm (1.6 in) quad mountings, numerous Oerlikon 20 mm (0.79 in) mountings, and aircraft installations for six planes (Grumman Avenger or Fairey Barracuda bombers and Hellcat or Seafire fighters), would have transformed the Jean Bart into a kind of hybrid battleship-aircraft carrier. An second proposal, less expensive but always with the same main artillery turret, had seventeen 127 mm (5.0 in) double turrets and twenty Bofors quad 40 mm (1.6 in) mountings and would have yielded a kind of AA battleship.[31] Admiral King, Commander in Chief, United States Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations, decided finally in March 1944 not to agree to any French proposals, and the Jean Bart stayed in Casablanca.[30][32]

The question of the Jean Bart's completion was once more discussed by the French Admiralty in 1945. Was she to be scrapped? Completed as a classic battleship as designed? Transformed into an aircraft carrier? On 21 September 1945, the Higher Council of the French Navy agreed rapidly she was not to be scrapped. The discussion to choose between the other possibilities seems to have been rather unsatisfying. Mr. Louis Kahn, Chief Naval Constructor, French Navy, who had designed the Joffre class aircraft carrier in the late 1930s,[33] presented a project for a transformation into an aircraft carrier operating forty/fifty four planes, for a cost of 5 billion Francs, and with a delay of five years or less. Some admirals, namely Admiral Fenard, formerly chief of the French Naval Mission to the U.S.A., and Admiral Nomy, who had been a Naval Aviation pilot and would be later Chef d'Etat-major Général de la Marine (1951–1953), found surprising that so few planes were being accommodated on a ship with a displacement of 40,000 tonnes (39,000 long tons), as equivalent ships in other navies were operating twice as many planes. In the minutes of the 21 September 1945 meeting of the Navy Higher Council, Rear Admiral Barjot wrote: "The design of aircraft carrier presented to the Council is called, by a member, "caricature" in regard to a project which would be established with the wish to create an efficient aircraft carrier...Despite the war learnings, the outdated myth of big gun goes on dominating our naval doctrine...It was surprising enough to see in 1945 the Navy General Staff supporting, doctrinally, against the aircraft carrier solution, the battleship solution".[34][35]

It is known that the British aircraft carrier HMS Eagle, laid down in 1942 and launched in 1946, with a displacement of 38,600 long tons (39,200 t) (46,000 long tons (47,000 t) full load), was by then designed for accommodating 80 planes.[36] However, the French experience of a battleship converted into an aircraft carrier, the Bearn, was rather unsuccessful, her slow speed having led to use her only as aircraft transport ship.[37]

It was decided finally to complete Jean Bart as an integral battleship, with the aim to get, with a delay of five years, a command ship, heavily anti-aircraft armed, with a capacity of naval bombing for attack against land.[38] The Jean Bart left Casablanca in August 1945 to Cherbourg, where was, by then, the only usable French graving dock on the French Atlantic coast, and entered in one of the Brest Laninon docks in March 1946. Work progressed slowly as the Brest Navy Yards had to be rebuilt in the meantime after severe wartime destruction. The battleship emerged with a much more compact fore control tower, topped by only one rangefinder (Richelieu had two ones after her refit). In 1948, she received an additional bulge to limit the increase of her draught, due to the planned fitting of a stronger anti-aircraft artillery; her beam reached 35.5 meters (116 ft).[24] Gunnery and speed sea trials showed a top speed of more than 32 knots (59 km/h; 37 mph).[39]

The Jean Bart was officially commissioned on 16 January 1949, but the anti-aircraft short range artillery, mainly twelve 100 mm (3.9 in) dual mountings and fourteen Bofors licensed 57 mm (2.2 in) dual mountings, was not fitted before 1952–1953.[40]

The Jean Bart was admitted to active service on 1 May 1955. She soon took the President of the French Republic in an official visit to Copenhagen, and went on to Oslo. In July, she took part (in New York) in ceremonies celebrating the 175th anniversary of the Newport landing of French troops led by the Comte de Rochambeau, during the American War of Independence.[41] On 21 October, in Toulon, the Jean Bart succeeded the Richelieu as the flagship of the South Group of Schools.[42]

During her active career, the Jean Bart had a complement of 750 to 900 men; 1500 had been planned. She reached more than 1200 men when she was about to be sent due to the Suez Canal crisis, but even then, only one 380 mm (15 in) turret and the axial 152 mm (6.0 in) turret could be manned.[citation needed]

In 1956, she took part in the operations off Port-Saïd during the Suez Crisis, but the French bombing support of land operations was not primarily by the four shots fired by her 380 mm (15 in) guns against the land, but by the French Aeronavale Corsairs, and the Jean Bart's main operational contribution was to ship the 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment from Algiers to Cyprus.[43][44]

After having fired the last French Navy 380 mm (15 in) gun shots in July 1957, the Jean Bart was placed in reserve, on August 1, 1957, and served as a school ship for the gunnery training schools in Toulon. Afterwards, there were some proposals in 1957–1958 to modernize her anti-aircraft artillery with new 100 mm (3.9 in) turrets (Model 53 in place of Model 45), or later to transform her into a guided missile battleship as had been USS Mississippi (but no French-built missile existed at that time, so it was proposed to use the U.S. Terrier missile).[45] In 1964, when a command ship was looked for by the Pacific Center for Nuclear Experiments, the cruiser De Grasse was preferred to the Jean Bart, which would have been more expensive to transform.[46]

Decommissioned in 1968, the Jean Bart was scrapped in 1970 near Toulon,[47] leaving the Turkish Yavuz, formerly the SMS Goeben, the only survivor afloat in European waters of the battleship era.[48]

The Jean Bart was overall an experimental battleship, never fully operational, mainly because of budget cuts but also because, when the Jean Bart was completed, the battleship was no longer the capital ship for the French Navy, since instead three aircraft carriers – the Arromanches, La Fayette, and Bois Belleau – operated during the 1950s in bombing support against land in Indochina, in Algeria, and during the Suez Crisis. However, she was very useful post-war as a testbed for new French-built naval AA guns and radars.[47]

[edit] Pictures

  • Battleship "Jean Bart" in 1968 in the harbour of Toulon

  • Battleship "Jean Bart" in 1968

[edit] References

  1. ^ Breyer 1973, p. 287
  2. ^ Lenton 1966, p. 8
  3. ^ Breyer 1973, p. 286
  4. ^ Breyer 1973, p. 433
  5. ^ Breyer 1973, p. 79
  6. ^ Giorgerini & Nani 1973, p. 320
  7. ^ Dumas, Dunkerque 2001, p. 17
  8. ^ Giorgerini, Nani 1973, pp. 37–39
  9. ^ Breyer 1973, p. 80
  10. ^ Lenton 1966, p. 47.
  11. ^ Breyer 1973, pp. 299–304.
  12. ^ Lenton 1966, p. 13.
  13. ^ Jordan & Dumas 2009, p. 98.
  14. ^ Jordan Dumas.
  15. ^ Dumas 2001a, p. 27.
  16. ^ Dumas 2001a, p. 29.
  17. ^ Jordan & Dumas 2009, p. 155.
  18. ^ Dumas 2001a, p. 20.
  19. ^ Jordan & Dumas 2009, p. 154.
  20. ^ Jordan & Dumas 2009, pp. 111-116.
  21. ^ Le Masson 1969, p. 19, p. 75.
  22. ^ Breyer 1973, p. 435.
  23. ^ Lepotier 1967, pp. 129–141.
  24. ^ a b Le Masson 1969, p. 76.
  25. ^ Jordan, Dumas & 2009 154-156.
  26. ^ Dumas 2001a, p. 32.
  27. ^ Dumas 2001a, p. 81.
  28. ^ Lepotier 1967, pp. 158–166.
  29. ^ Dumas 2001a, pp. 69–70.
  30. ^ a b Dumas 2001a, p. 70.
  31. ^ Dumas 2001a, pp. 33–34 ,p 112–115.
  32. ^ Lepotier 1967, pp. 253–257.
  33. ^ Le Masson 1969, p. 31.
  34. ^ Dumas 2001a, pp. 36–37.
  35. ^ Lepotier 1967, pp. 257–264.
  36. ^ Archibald 1971, p. 182.
  37. ^ Ireland & Grove 1997, p. 128.
  38. ^ Jordan & Dumas 2009, p. 211.
  39. ^ Lepotier 1967, pp. 264–267.
  40. ^ Dumas 2001a, pp. 71–73.
  41. ^ Lepotier 1967, pp. 315–330.
  42. ^ Dumas 2001a, p. 74.
  43. ^ Dumas 2001a, p. 75.
  44. ^ Lepotier 1967, pp. 337–342.
  45. ^ Dumas 2001a, pp. 54–56.
  46. ^ Dumas 2001a, p. 83.
  47. ^ a b Dumas 2001a, p. 76.
  48. ^ Breyer 1980, p. 349.

[edit] Bibliography

  • John, Jordan; Robert, Dumas (2009). French battleships 1922-1956. Barnsley S.Yorkshire: Seaforth Punblishing. ISBN 978-1-84832-034-5. 

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Richelieu · Jean Bart · Clemenceau · Gascogne

Preceded by: Dunkerque class - Followed by: Alsace class
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=French_battleship_Jean_Bart_(1940)&oldid=482069163"
Personal tools
Namespaces

Variants
Actions
Navigation
Interaction
Toolbox
Print/export
Languages